From About a Block Away
Noise Maker Corey Fogle is the owner of this extremely beautiful and extremely loud 1966 Pontiac GTO and has been proudly rolling it around town and to car shows for the past 18 years. In his own words he wanted to build something that had a timeless look, to keep the body mostly original and just tighten up the gaps to keep the body lines crisp.
The phrase “Built, not Bought” really applies to this ’66 as Corey and his father Keith did the body work, metal, and fabrication work, even promoting Aiden Westergaard (Corey’s son) to “Lead Flashlight Holder” in the process. After all, it was Keith that got Corey into the car world and now Corey is doing the same for his son Aiden.
Something Old, Something New
For the interior, Corey wanted to go a little simple but add some extremely custom touches that showed any onlooker his creative side. He started with a set of TMI Pro-Series Sport X Lowback bucket seats, with a matching rear seat in Black Sierra with black contrast stitching and steel grommets. The purists will notice that there are TPI Tech Instruments set into a 1932 Ford gauge cluster where the Pontiac version should be. There is also a Budnick Chicane steering wheel, Billet Specialties Shifter, a handmade sheet metal console with 1948 Chevy door handles, and windows cranks.
Minor Surgery
There is more than one non-stock upgrade and the power plant is one of them. The GTO had a heart transplant with a 375 hp LT5 that was sourced from a 1990 Corvette. The Vette powerplant was in decent shape and the only things that were added was a FiTech 400hp Go Street self-tuning fuel injection system, and a Billet Specialties Tru-Trac serpentine system and valve cover. The capable engine routes the power through the stock driveshaft into a Tremec TKO 5-Speed Transmission and that was pretty much all that was needed to make it both capable enough to rip away from stoplights but reliable enough to just get in and drive whenever Corey wanted to.
Easy Rolling
To give the Pontiac some street tractability, Corey kept the factory upper and lower control arms, but added a set of Ridetech Shockwave Air Bags to all four corners to give some adjustability to the ride and an Airlift 3p Air Management System was added to further fine-tune the ride. The GTO was stil solid after all these years and Corey really just wanted a realiable driver that rode nice and even so he didn’t add any major upgrades to the suspension.
Bright and Shiny Corey and his father Corey spent a lot of time on the color and knew that they didn’t want to do the normal hot-rod method of going all black, and since they were the ones doing the bodywork and paint they knew it had to be something special. The paint choice happened by chance in early 2004 as the father and son duo was passing a Nissan dealership and saw a bright orange 350Z just gleaming in the sunshine. Both turned to each other and just shouted out, “That’s the color!!!” After doing some research they settled on PPG Volcanic Orange. After aligning the panels and doing all the bodywork they sent the shell to Mark Warnock and Mike Westmoreland from Performance Auto Body. With that flaming orange paint job, this ’66 can be seen coming down the road from blocks away!
With the paint and body dialed in, the suspension finely tuned, and the engine just humming, the final touch was to get the wheels and tires. The father and son duo loved the classic look of the Boyd Coddington Strike Wheels, so they went with 17x7s in the front and 17x8s in the rear with BF Goodrich G-Force Comp 225/45r17 & 255/50r17 tires. To add some serious stopping power the brakes were converted to 11-inch discs all the way around using a Speedway kit.
In It For The Long Haul
With a complete car that all involved were very happy with, the Fogle’s have gotten almost two decades of fun out of their collaboration. The future will be no different, with more shows and weekend cruises planned but there is a small list of upgrades planned in the near future. Corey would like to touch up some of the battle scars the GTO has received over the years, a set of mini tubs to get the wheels a little more aggressive, and maybe some light interior upgrades.
We just love the family bonding that occurred over the course of building this classic, and we certainly hope that Corey, his father Keith, and son Aiden make more memories rolling around town getting ice cream and wowing crowds at local shows.
